Sandra G. Harding (March 29, 1935 – March 5, 2025) was an American philosopher of feminist and postcolonial theory, epistemology, research methodology, and philosophy of science, who directed the UCLA Center for the Study of Women from 1996 to 2000, and co-edited Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society from 2000 to 2005. Until her decease, she was a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Education at UCLA and a Distinguished Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University. In 2013, she was awarded the John Desmond Bernal Prize by the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S).

Education and career

Sandra Harding received her undergraduate degree from Douglass College of Rutgers University in 1956. After 12 years working as legal researcher, editor, and fifth-grade math teacher in New York City and Poughkeepsie, N.Y., she returned to graduate school and earned a doctorate from the Department of Philosophy at UCLA in 1973. This 56-page account was the first such attempt to bring gender issues in science and technology to such a global-scale and prestigious context. She was invited to contribute a chapter to UNESCO's World Social Science Report 2010 on "Standpoint Methodologies and Epistemologies: a Logic of Scientific Inquiry for People." This statement, among others, caused Harding's work to be controversial within certain scholarly circles. During the Science Wars, a debate regarding the value-neutrality of the sciences of the 1990s, her work became a main target of critics of feminist and sociological approaches.

She was criticized by mathematicians Michael Sullivan, Mary Gray, and Lenore Blum, and by the historian of science Ann Hibner Koblitz. Historian Garrett G. Fagan criticizes her for uncritically endorsing Afrocentric pseudohistory. Her essay on "Science is 'Good to Think With'" was the lead article in the issue of the journal Social Text that also included the Sokal Hoax, which focused on her work among others. Her work was also a main target of Paul Gross and Norman Levitt's Higher Superstition.

Death

Harding died on March 5, 2025, at the age of 89.

Awards, honors and fellowships

  • 2013. Awarded John Desmond Bernal Prize of Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S).
  • 2012. Appointed Distinguished Professor of Education and Gender Studies. UCLA
  • 2011. Appointed Distinguished Affiliate Professor of Philosophy, Michigan State University, East Lansing
  • 2009. Received American Education Research Association (AERA) Award for Distinguished Contributions to Gender Equity in Education Research.
  • 2007–08. Appointed a Phi Beta Kappa National Lecturer.
  • 2007. Awarded The Douglass (College) Society Membership.
  • 2000–05 Co-editor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.
  • 1990 Woman Philosopher of the Year, Eastern Division Society for Women in Philosophy.
  • 1989. Elected to membership in Sigma Xi.

Selected works

Books

  • The Science Question in Feminism, 1986.
  • Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?: Thinking from Women's Lives, 1991.
  • Is Science Multicultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies, 1998.
  • Science and Social Inequality: Feminist and Postcolonial Issues, 2006.
  • Sciences From Below: Feminisms, Postcolonialities, and Modernities, 2008.
  • Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research, 2015.

Articles

  • 1973. "Feminism: Reform or Revolution?" Philosophical Forum (Boston) 5, 271–284
  • 1979. "The Social Function of the Empiricist Conception of Mind," Metaphilosophy 10 (Jan 1), 38–47
  • 1979. "Is the Equality of Opportunity Principle Democratic?" Philosophical Forum (Boston) 10 (Dec 1), 206–22
  • 1982. "Is Gender a Variable in Conceptions of Rationality: A Survey of Issues," Dialectica, 36 (Jan 1): 225–42
  • 1983. "Why Has the Sex/Gender System Become Visible Only Now," in Discovering Reality, ed. Sandra Harding and Merrill Hintikka
  • 1987. "The Method Question," Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 2, 19–35
  • 1987. "The Curious Coincidence of Feminine and African Moralities," Women and Moral Theory, ed. Eva Feder Kittay and Diana Meyers
  • 1990. "Starting Thought From Women's Lives: Eight Resources for Maximizing Objectivity," Journal of Social Philosophy 21(2–3), 140–49
  • 1990. "Feminism, Science, and the Anti-Enlightenment Critiques," in Feminism/Postmodernism, ed. Linda Nicholson, 83–106
  • 1992. "After Eurocentrism? Challenges for the Philosophy of Science," PSA 1992 Vol. 2, 311–319
  • 1993. "Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What Is 'Strong Objectivity'?" in Feminist Epistemologies, ed. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter
  • 1995. "'Strong Objectivity': A Response to the New Objectivity Question," Synthese, Vol. 104, No. 3, pp. 331–349
  • 1998. "Women, Science, and Society," Science, New Series, Vol. 281, No. 5383 (Sep 11 1998), 1599–1600
  • 2002. "Must the Advance of Science Advance Global Inequality?" International Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Summer), 87–105
  • 2003. "How Standpoint Methodology Informs Philosophy of Social Science," in Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences
  • 2004. "A Socially Relevant Philosophy of Science? Resources from Standpoint Theory's Controversiality," Hypatia, Vol. 19, No. 1, 25–47
  • 2005. "'Science and Democracy:' Replayed or Redesigned?" Social Epistemology, Vol. 19, No. 1, 5–18
  • 2006. "Two Influential Theories of Ignorance and Philosophy's Interests in Ignoring Them," Hypatia, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Summer), 20–36
  • 2007. "Modernity, Science, and Democracy," in Social Philosophy Today, Volume 22. Philosophy Documentation Center
  • 2008. "How Many Epistemologies Should Guide the Production of Scientific Knowledge?" Hypatia, Vol. 23, No. 4, 212–219
  • 2009. "Postcolonial and Feminist Philosophies of Science and Technology," Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 12, No. 4, p. 410–429
  • 2010. "Standpoint Methodologies and Epistemologies: A Logic of Scientific Inquiry for People," World Social Science Report 2010, 173–5
  • 2012. "Objectivity and Diversity," in Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education, ed. James Banks
  • 2017. "Latin American Decolonial Studies: Feminist Issues," Feminist Studies, Vol. 43, No. 3, 624–636
  • and Kathryn Norberg, 2005. "New Feminist Approaches to Social Science Methodologies: An Introduction," Signs, Vol. 30, No. 4, 2009–15

See also

  • American philosophy
  • List of American philosophers
  • Standpoint theory
  • Standpoint feminism

References

Further reading

  • Callahan, Joan and Nancy Tuana. "Feminist Philosophy Interview Project: Feminist Philosophers In Their Own Words "
  • Harding, Sandra. 2002. "Philosophy as Work and Politics," in The Philosophical I: Personal Reflections on Life in Philosophy, ed. George Yancy. Lanham Mass: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 23–42
  • Hinterberger, Amy. 2013. "Curating postcolonial critique", Social Studies of Science 43(4) 619–627. (Review of The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader.)
  • Hirsch, Elizabeth and Gary A. Olson "Starting From Marginalized Lives A Conversation with Sandra Harding," JAC 15:2. (1995).
  • Marsan, Loren. 2008. "Thinking from Women's Lives: Sandra Harding, Standpoint, and Science." Video.
  • Richardson, Sarah S. 2010. "Feminist philosophy of science: history, contributions, and challenges," Synthese 177:337–362.
  • Rooney, Phyllis. 2007. "The Marginalization of Feminist Epistemology and What That Reveals About Epistemology 'Proper'". In Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science Power in Knowledge., ed. Heidi Grasswick. Dordrecht: Springer.
  • "Starting from Marginalized Lives: A Conversation with Sandra Harding" by Elizabeth Hirsh and Gary A. Olson JAC 15.2, Spring 1995.
  • "Women, Science, and Society" by Sandra Harding, Science, September 11, 1998.
  • Sandra G. Harding Papers – Pembroke Center Archives, Brown University